The Long Road To Freedom
by Acherubis
Summary: AU. Before the end, Anders ponders freedom, justice and the reasons why he accepted Justice's offer. Anders' PoV. Rated M for violence.


**Author's Note: This little piece is my take on what might go through Anders' head shortly before the end of DA II. For those who did not play the game yet: there could be spoilers. I was inspired to write this by Jennifer Hepler's "Anders - Short Story". To fit my ideas, I changed some details so this story is slightly AU. Rating is M for graphic violence. Not beta-read yet. Enjoy! Reviews are, as always, appreciated.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age or anything related to it. I don't make money from this. The story is for entertainment only. **

**The Long Road To Freedom**

I feel myself slipping.

Every day passes me by like a dream. Like a nightmare.

Anger.

Hatred.

They consume me.

I float on a wave of madness; diving through manic joy, righteous anger and bottomless despair without being able to distinguish one from the other anymore. It's like a blur, emotions melting into one another like drops of water creating an ocean. Without beginning. Without end.

My mind is unraveling like a carpet, dusty and threadbare from old age and too many feet.

The blanks in my memory become larger.

On good days, I am able to control the spirit inside of me, if only by a thread. On bad days, I barely remember getting out of bed.

How long now until I lose myself completely?

How long until only Vengeance will be left?

I long since ceased to think of him as Justice.

Justice is righteous.

Justice is hard.

The being inside of me is certainly hard but not righteous anymore. It is vindictive. It is furious.

The friend I invited into my body has turned into an enemy. He became a parasite, devouring me from the inside out.

Isn't that ironic? My hate and anger corrupted him and now it is me who is corrupted by the being he has become. I alone am responsible for my – our – demise.

My friends like to think that I merged with Justice for the greater good, to right the wrong that is committed against every single mage all over Thedas.

I never object their belief, yet I know that it had not been the real reason why I let the spirit convince me of his crazy plan. The good Samaritan they want to see in me never existed.

While it is certainly true that, as a healer, I am more sensitive to people's ailments than others and therefore more inclined to help those in need it is also true that, in the past, I have been even more concerned with my own welfare. My motivation for joining with Justice was as simple as it was selfish: I wanted to be free.

Free of the templars.

Free of persecution.

Free to live my life as I saw fit without the ever-present, suspicious and fearful eyes of everyone around me when they found I was a mage.

If I pondered the consequences of Justice's suggestion, maybe I would have understood that there was a reason why a symbiosis between man and spirit was practically unheard of. Maybe I would have understood that there only was a very fine line between being a host and becoming possessed.

But I did not think of the consequences, of the magnitude of what it would mean to merge with a spirit of justice. The man I once was seldom dwelled on a problem very long or very hard. He tended to push serious thoughts away for they only shadowed the many fun things that could be pursued instead. Especially after I had become a warden and was out of the Chantry's reach it was easy to be carefree.

Even though I never felt completely at ease around my fellow wardens, I always managed to enjoy my new-found freedom. Life was good. For once, luck was on my side and I did not intend to waste it. I ignored the fear and mistrust I was met with even from my peers and lived for the moment, for the many new and exiting adventures I was now allowed to experience without punishment.

When Justice first approached me with his idea of joining our souls to fight for mage freedom I just laughed. Those things did not concern me anymore and who was I anyway to go against the Chantry all by myself? I just escaped those self-righteous, arrogant bastards and their hypocritical system and there was not a chance in the void that I would willingly oppose them again.

I had what I wanted, didn't I, and that was all that mattered to me.

Until one day, approximately a year after I had joined the wardens, some templars appeared on the doorstep of our headquarters, requesting to go through the joining.

One of them was an unpleasant fellow named Rolan. I instantly hated his guts and it soon became obvious that the feeling was mutual.

As soon as he had passed his joining, he always seemed to be two steps behind me, taunting me, threatening me.

I thought I had escaped the Chantry and the Tower but when Rolan arrived I knew I didn't. All of a sudden, I was not paired with my usual companions anymore when given an assignment but with Rolan and at least one of his templar-friends. I felt controlled and observed and that, in turn, made me feel edgy and paranoid. To me, it was obvious from there on out that he was a spy sent by the Chantry to have an eye on the renegade mage. It felt like the Tower all over again.

No one ever confirmed my suspicions, of course, but they also never said they were false.

My freedom was slipping me again, no matter how hard I tried to keep it. It was like trying to keep water from seeping through your fingers.

The hatred for my former oppressors that had been dormant for quite a while began to raise its ugly head again and once re-ignited, it burned brighter and stronger than ever.

I began to consider Justice's suggestion in earnest for the first time. My feelings towards Rolan and therefore the Chantry as a whole were the perfect feeding grounds for his ideas and plans. It still took me a while but once I had warmed up to the thought, it was easy for the spirit to convince me that joining our souls was the right thing to do and so we struck a deal.

I would be Justice's host and in turn, he would help me fight the Chantry and its followers.

I should have never agreed to it.

Maker, I've been so naïve!

Foolishness and arrogance do not go hand in hand very well and I am guilty of both. It was foolish of me to agree to a deal I did not fully understand and it was arrogant to think the two of us alone could make a difference in an indifferent world.

But I was desperate and Justice offered me a seemingly easy way out of my misery. With such a strong ally, what could possibly go wrong?

_Everything_, of course.

The moment we merged I was sucked into a maelstrom that made me spiral down further and further into a bottomless abyss ever since.

I remember that there had been confusion the first few minutes after we merged. A feeling like something was off. My body, my mind were still mine, yet not mine at all. Our thoughts and feelings were one, yet still strangely separated.

Who was I?

I was Anders.

I was Justice.

I was neither of them.

There also was a feeling of limitless power. I felt invincible, invulnerable. Nothing could harm me, not even a whole army of templars.

And then I heard the voices. Alarmed. Afraid.

Someone had watched us.

Needless to say that it was Rolan and his band.

I knew that very second that we were betrayed and the thought was enough to bring out Justice for the first time. There was no controlling it.

It was the moment that marked the first of many sins I have committed since then: I've killed in cold blood.

I had to kill before. In self-defense. As a means to save innocents. It is part of the job when you are a warden but it had never been easy for me. It simply is not in a healer's nature. A healer is there to cure and not to kill.

But I was not a healer then and there.

I was Justice.

I was Vengeance.

I was the weapon that would erase the Chantry from the face of the earth and make the world a better place for mages.

They never stood a chance.

Rolan's friends were the first to fall victim to my dauntless, white-hot rage.

I burned them to ashes in the blink of an eye, melting metal and skin and flesh as if it was the easiest thing in the world. The heat was so intense it made their bones glow in the darkness.

The sight of them writhing in agony, the sound of their screams and the unspeakable terror in Rolan's eyes… it was pure bliss.

Now they had a reason to fear me.

Now they had a reason to hunt me.

I was completely lost in the sweet intoxication that was my retribution. Nothing ever felt so good. I did not even feel Rolan's sword when he ran it through my guts. All I felt was anger about his feeble, useless attempt to harm me.

How dared he attacking me? I was so much more superior than him now, my cause was so much more righteous than his. I would teach him not to mess with me.

With that decision in mind I charged and then… and then…

What happened next is all a red haze of blood and ecstasy to me until this day.

I know I tasted his blood in my mouth and I know it ran down my throat like the finest Antivan wine. I know that his death was the most painful and most cruel that night and I know that I enjoyed every second of his torture but the actual events are erased from my memory.

I should be thankful for this tiny piece of mercy on my soul for Maker knows I don't deserve it.

When the haze lifted, though, and Justice was sated all that remained was horror.

All around me were bodies.

So many bodies.

More than there should have been.

I only counted Rolan and three of his friends before the madness began. What lay there at my feet were at least ten corpses if not more.

How come I did not notice them before?

And then it dawned on me.

Coward that he was, Rolan would have never faced me alone. Of course, he would have a small army hiding in the bushes and trees all around.

A chill ran down my spine with what that meant.

My eyes frantically darted about the field of destruction I had created and for the first time in years I prayed.

Don't let it be true.

Holy Andraste, please don't let it be them.

And as I prayed, I got a glimpse of a blue-white tunic here, the wings of a gryphon-emblem there.

My brothers.

Wardens.

All of them.

The sight that caused me so much satisfaction before made me sick to the bone now.

What did I do?

What did _we_ do?

This was not justice!

This was not what I expected when I struck a deal with my friend.

This was madness!

That night, I started running again like I did so many times before; just that now, I was not running from the templars but from myself, from the monster – _the abomination_ – I had become. My desire for freedom only resulted in me being locked in a cage again, if so a different one; a prisoner of Justice and my own stupidity.

To the day, I am paying the price for said stupidity and doing so has pushed me to my limits and beyond.

I'm tired now. So very tired.

All I want to do is rest my weary soul.

But I'm not allowed to. Not just yet, anyway.

Vengeance wouldn't let me. I scream out in resentment but my voice dies away unheard in the all encompassing, feverish need for revenge.

The cause is what matters.

Nothing else.

My needs, wishes, desire, are not important, a nuisance at best. I am at his beck and call until, finally, our task is completed and the Chantry goes up in flames and ashes.

I know I will die in the process and Maker, do I look forward to that moment. It is the only way to atone for the pain and suffering I brought and will still bring upon so many innocents.

With my death, justice will be served.

Soon now, very soon, the long road that is my life will reach its end. The bricks it is built of are made of regrets and mistakes, good intentions and true passion. Every stone had its purpose, every mile I went on it led to this one, inevitable destination.

I can already see the gate at the end of that road. When I have reached it I'm sure to see a sign attached to it and that sign will read one single word:

Freedom.


End file.
